Skeptoid #476: The Chess-Playing Mechanical Turk
Skeptoid
Brian Dunning
4.6 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2015
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An overview of the amazing chess playing robot of the 1700s.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For 80 years in the 18th and 19th centuries, a chess playing a tomaton toured the world, |
| 0:10.6 | somehow defeating heads of state and expert chess players alike. |
| 0:14.9 | Is it possible that someone developed a mechanical technology capable of mastering this incredibly |
| 0:20.7 | complex game? |
| 0:22.5 | Or is it something we should be skeptical of? |
| 0:26.1 | The mechanical turk is today on Skeptoid. |
| 0:56.1 | And turn it to more of the podcasts that you love. |
| 0:58.6 | Want to find out more? |
| 1:00.1 | Visit Skeptoid.com slash giving. |
| 1:02.9 | Or call 877-215-0277 today. |
| 1:07.2 | That's 877-215-0277 or Skeptoid.com slash giving. |
| 1:14.1 | S-K-E-P-T-O-I-D dot com slash giving. |
| 1:23.0 | You're listening to Skeptoid. |
| 1:24.5 | I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. |
| 1:27.8 | The chess playing mechanical turk. |
| 1:31.2 | Today we're headed back in time all the way back to the Vienna Court of Empress Maria |
| 1:35.6 | Teresa of Austria-Hungary in the year 1770. |
| 1:39.7 | There, the scientific polymath Werner von Kempelin, then 36 years old, brought forth a mechanical |
| 1:47.0 | automaton. |
| 1:48.5 | The figure of a man seated at a large wooden chess table, the cabinet below filled with |
| 1:53.5 | clockwork. |
| 1:54.5 | A volunteer from the audience stepped forward. |
... |
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